Analysis Of John Gardner's Grendel

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hough the story of Grendel and Beowulf is a good versus evil story in the original epic poem, John Gardner shows another side to Grendel in his novella, Grendel. Throughout this novella, Grendel is seen still as a monster, but a monster with a story to tell. He is a character one can empathize with, especially when he states things such as “My heart was light with Hrothgar’s goodness, and leaden with grief at my own bloodthirsty ways (Gardner 48)” which show that he has a conscience under his fearsome look. That being said, Grendel is influenced by many characters throughout the novella, the two most notable being the dragon and the Shaper. The Shaper was the most influential in Grendel’s story because of Grendel’s first reaction to the Shaper, …show more content…

This shows a shift in Grendel’s feelings towards himself as well. After hearing the Shaper’s song, Grendel “...fled, ridiculous hairy creature torn apart by poetry - crawling, whimpering, streaming tears, across the world like a two-headed beast, like mixed-up lamb and kid at the tail of a baffled, indifferent ewe - and I gnashed my teeth and clutched the sides of my head as if to heal the split, but I couldn’t (Gardner, 44).” This clearly shows how the Shaper influenced, quite heavily, Grendel’s shift in viewpoint on life itself. On the surface, Grendel hides his positive outlook on his life, pretending that the Shaper is wrong, and going completely against everything the Shaper attempts to reveal. This only solidifies the Shaper’s optimistic influence on …show more content…

When watching the people to gauge their reactions towards the death of the Shaper, Grendel states “The woman is as still as the dead man in his bed. I am tempted to snatch her...But I back away. I look in on the Shaper one more time. The old women are arranging him…(Gardner, 145)” This shows how the Shaper has made Grendel respect him enough to not kill anyone on the day of his death, especially someone he was important to. This is one of the few moments where it is clear that Grendel has learned a substantial amount of things from the Shaper, and respects him enough to let him have a day of peace after his passing. When thinking about the Shaper’s death, Grendel is wrought with emptiness once more, exclaiming “...now the Shaper is dead, strange thoughts come over me. I think of the pastness of the past: how the moment I am alive in, prisoned in, moves like a tumbling form through darkness, the underground river. Not only ancient history - the mythical age of the brothers’ feud - but my own history one second ago, has vanished utterly, dropped out of existence (Gardner, 146).” The Shaper, in this context, is shown to be the creator of Grendel’s positivity, and now that he is gone Grendel is falling back to the place he was before the Shaper existed: a true monster. Grendel is now seeing the world through solely

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